but when that last hope perished at last, the
ne'er-do-weel was sent abroad to get him out of the way. He was shipped
off with just enough money in his pocket--no, in the purser's pocket--for
the needs of the voyage--and when he reached his destined port he would
find a remittance awaiting him there. Not a large one, but just enough
to keep him a month. A similar remittance would come monthly thereafter.
It was the remittance-man's custom to pay his month's board and lodging
straightway--a duty which his landlord did not allow him to forget--then
spree away the rest of his money in a single night, then brood and mope
and grieve in idleness till the next remittance came. It is a pathetic
life.

We had other remittance-men on board, it was said. At least they said
they were R. M.'s. There were two. But they did not resemble the
Canadian; they lacked his tidiness, and his brains, and his gentlemanly
ways, and his resolute spirit, and his humanities and generosities. One
of them was a lad of nineteen or twenty, and he was a good deal of a
ruin, as to clothes, and morals, and general aspect. He said he was a
scion of a ducal house in England, and had been shipped to Canada for the
house's relief, that he had fallen into trouble there, and was now being
shipped to Australia. He said he had no title. Beyond this remark he
was economical of the truth. The first thing he did in Australia was to
get into the lockup, and the next thing he did was to proclaim himself an
earl in the police court in the morning and fail to prove it.

CHAPTER II.

When in doubt, tell the truth.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

About four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all
the male passengers put on white linen clothes. One or two days later we
crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the
officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white
linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. This prevalence
of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool, and
cheerful and picnicky aspect.

From my diary:

There are several sorts of ills in the world from which a person can
never escape altogether, let him journey as far as he will. One escapes
from one breed of an ill only to encounter another breed of it. We have
come far from the snake liar and the fish liar, and there was rest and
peace in the thoug